


Snowed In

by paintedrecs



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Talia Hale, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire (Teen Wolf), Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, Christmas Fluff, College Student Stiles Stilinski, Cora Hale & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Demisexual Derek Hale, Derek Hale is a Christmas Baby, Derek POV, Getting to Know Each Other, Graduate Student Derek Hale, M/M, Mild Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Oblivious Derek Hale, Past Jennifer Blake/Derek Hale (mentioned), Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale (mentioned), Peter Hale is a Bad Uncle, Pining Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 07:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21798067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedrecs/pseuds/paintedrecs
Summary: As far as Derek could tell, Cora hadn’taskedif she could bring someone home for the holidays. She’d barely even bothered to give a heads up: she’d texted from the rest stop that was almost exactly halfway between campus and home, by which point it was much too late to tell her to leave this unwelcome intruder—some guy namedStiles—behind.***Derek loved Christmas. Family-only Christmases, that is, which Cora had thrown a wrench into this year by bringing home a guy who turned out to be handsome, funny, brilliant, and...of course...completely unavailable.Or so Derek thought.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 125
Kudos: 1755
Collections: 12 Days of Sterek





	Snowed In

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by inkforwords, who got snowed in this year and accidentally gave me the 12 Days prompt I needed. I didn't expect to write 16k, but...Sterek has a way of doing that to me.
> 
> Tag clarifications: There are some non-specific references to Kate and Jennifer, as traumatic parts of Derek's past. Because there was no fire and his family support system's still intact, his trust issues aren't nearly at canon levels. There's a little exploration of grief: Stiles's mom, Derek's dad.
> 
> Minor spoilers: "Misunderstandings" refers to Derek thinking Cora & Stiles are dating - 100% untrue; he's just oblivious.
> 
> And the rest is...pure Christmassy fluff.

“But it’s _Christmas_,” Derek said, knowing he sounded approximately twelve years old. He’d have been more embarrassed about the whining note in his voice if he hadn’t been alone in the kitchen with his mom, who simply patted him absently on the hand as she reached around him for the flour.

“Christmas is next week; he’ll be gone by then,” his mom said as she scooped three heaping cups into a heavy glass bowl that Derek had pulled out of a cabinet before getting distracted by the full implications of her distressing announcement.

As far as Derek could tell, Cora hadn’t _asked_ if she could bring someone home for the holidays. She’d barely even bothered to give a heads up: she’d texted from the rest stop that was almost exactly halfway between campus and home, by which point it was much too late to tell her to leave this unwelcome intruder—some guy named _Stiles_—behind. Privately, Derek was of the opinion that his mom should’ve told Cora to buy the guy a hot thermos of coffee and leave him at the nearest bus stop, but his mom had simply let a slight frown crease her forehead before deciding they needed to start some of their holiday baking a few days earlier than planned.

Laura had been sent to the grocery store to pick up more supplies, and Derek had been enlisted as a baking assistant—a job that he was currently performing very badly.

“Can you hand me the sugar, sweetheart? There should be a fresh bag behind that tea your uncle sent us.”

Derek wrinkled his nose. At least Peter was staying away this year. He’d sent apology gifts ahead of time, like anyone was actually going to miss his presence or had even invited him. Derek and Laura had opened the unwelcome box immediately, not wanting to ruin Christmas morning with whatever passive-aggressive messages Peter had gift-wrapped for them. Fortunately, it hadn’t ended up being that bad—in Peter terms, anyway.

He’d included, among other useless and pointedly overpriced items, a boxed set of heavily scented holiday teas in flavors that he knew full well no one else in the family liked (Laura had cursed at the contents and immediately started sneezing), plus a couple of brittle hardback books in Latin, wrapped in birthday paper—a snide reminder that Derek hadn’t followed the field of study that Peter had been trying to force on him since he was about nine years old.

The note that came with the box, explaining that Peter would be spending the holiday season in Paris, or possibly on a mini European tour if he got bored or met someone interesting enough to take with him, had been the one bright spot. This year, they’d have a family-only Christmas, exactly how Derek had always preferred it. Peter, obviously, hadn’t counted as family for at least two decades. And Derek wasn’t old enough to remember the bits before that.

But now there was _Stiles_.

Derek could feel his teeth grinding over the name; his mom gave him a mild sideways look, letting him know that she could hear the subtle shift of his fangs. It wasn’t a reprimand, but it was still enough to make him relax his jaw and hand over the sugar—plus the cinnamon and box of baking soda she hadn’t asked for yet.

“I don’t see why he has to come at all,” Derek couldn’t help adding, after a few moments of silence during which that sentence had been playing through his mind on a loop. “There’s an airport in Ithaca. Why can’t he just fly from _there_?”

Derek was fully aware that his mom was being a lot more patient than he deserved. She shook some salt into the mixture, apparently tiring of the measuring spoons, before answering.

“Cora said he got caught up in finals prep and waited too long to buy a ticket; it would’ve been nearly a thousand dollars for a 17 hour flight with two layovers.”

Derek winced. Going coast-to-coast—New York to California—should take _half_ that time, maybe less with a good tailwind. He wasn’t ready to concede the point just yet, but...he could see some sense in driving a couple hours, spending the night, and taking a flight out of Buffalo instead.

“I don’t like him,” Derek muttered as a last resort, mostly under his breath, as though that would change anything about his mother’s ability to hear him.

“You don’t know him,” his mom replied calmly, which was entirely beside the point. Derek disliked him _on principle_.

He was smart enough to keep his mouth shut about the rest. While Derek had never met Stiles, he _had_ heard the name before, usually dropped into conversations about parties Cora was attending with classmates, several of whom would regularly ditch her for the nearest piece of hot ass, leaving her to walk home alone at the end of the night.

It wasn’t something Derek had paid a huge amount of attention to at the time, since his little sister had constantly assured him that she was _fine_, it wasn’t like anything creeping in the shadows of the frat houses could exactly harm her. She’d bared her teeth at the camera, grinning sharply at him, as confident and fearless as ever. Still, Derek’s memory had snagged on one of the names, unusual enough to stick out amongst all the Chads and Dicks and Harrys who seemed to flock around Cora.

_Stiles_. One of the douches who seemed to hook up with someone new every weekend—not that Derek was judging, exactly, it just wasn’t his style—and who’d now moved on to Derek’s beautiful, tough-as-nails, but emotionally vulnerable sister.

Derek _did_ have a lot of (very angry, overly protective) thoughts about that.

He glowered at the can of pumpkin that his mother was opening with her claws, not bothering with the multi-tool opener that Peter had included in their Christmas box. According to the packaging that’d been intentionally left intact, it was from Switzerland and had cost an absurd amount of money.

His mother caught him looking and sent a mischievous grin his way, an expression Laura had inherited and used far too often. It was both soothing and infuriating, a tug of emotions that Derek frequently felt around his family.

“Maybe we could rewrap some of Peter’s presents for Stiles,” his mom said, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

Derek felt his mouth twitching into a reluctant smile. Peter would be furious when he found out, although he’d mask it with his usual layers of charm and deception. It was hard to believe sometimes that they were related. Peter and Talia Hale were as opposite as two people could be: light and dark, manipulative and trustworthy, unstable and as steady as the moon that guided their days.

Derek knew his mom didn’t get easily ruffled; it was a quality that made her both an amazing mother and a powerful Alpha. She could—and would—effortlessly deal with any difficulty that came their way, whether it was a rogue omega, a pushy PTA mom trying to take over a bake sale, her conniving brother, or some frat bro unexpectedly showing up for the weekend.

Even so, Derek couldn’t help being surprised that she seemed to care so little about who this guy was and what kind of an impact he’d have on their family—their _Pack_. The last time Laura had gone through a bad breakup, it’d sent waves of agony shivering through their bond for months, as she instinctively grasped for a connection that’d been tentatively formed then abruptly, violently snapped. Cora had to be free to make her own choices, of course, but shouldn’t they do what they could to protect her—to help cushion some of the blow?

“I’m just...worried,” he admitted. “Cora’s never brought a boyfriend home before. Don’t you think that means she’s serious about him?”

“Oh honey, I don’t think Stiles is her—” His mom stopped, frowning down at the spoon she was stirring through the thick brownish-orange mixture, which she’d just emptied a bag of chocolate chips into. “Does this look right to you? I might have missed an ingredient.”

“You—_Mom_,” Derek said, all thoughts of Cora’s new boyfriend fleeing. He’d vaguely noticed her cracking eggs and pouring oil into the bowl—again, without actually measuring it—but he’d been too distracted to think about stopping her before she ruined one of his favorite holiday treats. “You’re supposed to mix the wet and dry ingredients separately. Here, just...sit down Mom, I’ll do the rest.”

His mom gave him a sheepish grin, although there was a hint of triumph to it that he narrowed his eyes at before deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble. He was familiar with variations of _that_ look, too—it had never spelled anything good with Laura, and his mom could be a thousand times worse. Better to just silently take over and salvage what he could.

Derek was the only person in their family who actually _enjoyed_ baking, at least since...anyway, there was a reason he’d been left behind to help out. It was really his own fault for letting his mom forge ahead like you could simply throw ingredients into a bowl and then shove that mess in the oven and expect it to be edible.

Derek liked baking because, unlike most things in his life, it was simple and methodical. As long as you paid attention and followed the instructions, things would more or less turn out the way they were supposed to.

For the next hour, as the loaves of pumpkin bread rose in the oven, their spices mixing oddly yet pleasantly with the rich scent of garlic roasting in preparation for the steak and potatoes meal Cora had requested, Derek slipped into a peaceful, familiar holiday routine. He almost forgot entirely that his sister wouldn’t be arriving alone.

***

Stiles was...somehow worse than Derek had been expecting.

Predictably, the rest of the family loved him immediately.

After an uproariously enthusiastic dinner, where everyone but Derek seemed to be competing to see who could come the closest to eating their body weight (Cora, by a narrow but predictable margin), he escaped to the back deck while the others argued over who had to take care of the dishes.

It didn’t take much effort to tune them out, focusing instead on the quiet rustling of creatures going about their business in the surrounding woods. He’d eased himself back into a semblance of his earlier peaceful state by the time the screen door creaked open, its hinges never able to recover from years of being slammed by small werewolves eager to run outside.

Derek tensed, then forced his muscles to relax. He didn’t need to turn to see who’d interrupted his much-needed solitude; besides the fact that his family knew when to let him recharge, the scent that wafted towards him was unmistakable.

“It’s nice out here,” Stiles said, ignoring whatever signals Derek was giving off to join him at the railing, leaning down a bit to brace his arms against the smooth wooden beam. The sleeves of his flannel shirt were still rolled past his elbows, something he’d done during dinner, laughing without any hint of embarrassment after Cora pointed out that he’d dipped one of the cuffs in his generously heaped portion of mashed potatoes and had been flinging bits of it across the tabletop as he talked. Derek let his gaze drift to Stiles’s forearms, then down to his broad palms and long, expressive fingers, before dragging it back to the dark treeline.

Stiles was...attractive. So absurdly Derek’s type it almost hurt. Derek had noticed the moment he’d walked through the door, then done his best to pretend the thought had never entered his mind.

Stiles was also, mercifully, a human who couldn’t read any physical cues other than body language. Judging from the fact that he was now tilting his own body towards Derek, open and inviting and seemingly completely unaware of how much discomfort Derek was radiating, he was obviously bad at even that.

“Cold though,” Stiles continued after a few moments of silence that probably only felt charged on Derek’s end. He tilted his face up, his lips parting slightly as he sniffed the air, as though his mediocre human senses could tell him anything about the weather. “It feels like it might snow.”

“It’s December,” Derek said, jerking his head to indicate the white-dusted yard, patchy in places, with points of green still showing through.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, grinning at him, still as casually friendly as he’d been from the moment he’d entered the house, chuckling in soft apology when Derek had abruptly stepped back from a startling and entirely unwelcome attempt at a hug. “I meant _more_ snow. Feels like the air’s shifting that way, you know? It gets that bite.”

Derek carefully moved his arm an inch away from Stiles’s, making sure there was no accidental brush of their bare skin. He gave Stiles another, more deliberate sidelong look, wondering at the playful inflection he’d put into the word “bite.” Cora couldn’t possibly have said anything to him yet; it was much too early for that. Laura hadn’t told her last boyfriend until they’d been dating for a year and a half.

Too early, in Derek’s opinion. It took longer than that to know if you could really trust someone.

“You should go inside if you’re cold,” he said gruffly, choosing to ignore what it’d mean if Cora had already shared that part of their life with Stiles.

Stiles nodded, several times, the pale skin of his throat bobbing in a swallow that Derek couldn’t help watching.

“Yeah. You’re right. I got out of dishes duty by saying I was going to turn in, actually. Cora did all of the driving, but I’m still pretty tired.”

Derek snorted. “With her in the driver’s seat, who wouldn’t be.”

Stiles’s honey-brown eyes widened, his scent spiking, then softening in time with his expression. “Yeah,” he said again, with a pleasant, throaty chuckle. “I actually tried to casually swap places when we stopped for gas—when she called you guys?—but she kicked me out. Like, almost literally kicked me; I think she would’ve if I hadn’t gotten the hint and moved back to the other side of the truck. I love her, but your sister’s scary.”

Derek frowned, feeling his mood souring.

Stiles’s mouth twisted a little; he wasn’t completely unobservant, then.

“Anyway,” he said, drawing the word out, rolling his sleeves back down as he stepped away from the railing. “I came out here because your mom said you could help me with my sleeping arrangements?”

Derek gave him a blank look. “Shouldn’t Cora be doing that?”

“Ah,” Stiles said, tapping two fingers against the side of his head, in what he probably thought was a conspiratorial gesture. “She lost the dishes battle after Laura put her in a headlock. And then they broke a glass and your mom yelled at them—or didn’t _yell_, exactly, but her voice did this thing that was somehow worse. So they’ll both be cleaning for a while, probably. Laura’s supposed to be sweeping up the glass and then the rest of the ground floor, and Cora’s clearing off the table. Thanks for that, by the way—I didn’t get a chance to say it before. Dinner was amazing. That’s the best filet mignon I’ve had in...probably ever.”

“I could tell,” Derek said dryly. Stiles _moaned_ when he enjoyed things. It was...unsettling, and Derek had never been more grateful that his room was on the opposite side of the house from Cora’s.

Stiles’s cheeks pinked a bit, but he forged on, seeming determined to make Derek go back into the house with him. “So...bedding, I guess? Your mom said there’d be extra sheets in a closet and that you’d know where that is.”

Derek frowned again, this time in confusion. Cora’s room was already set up; his mom would know that, since that’s what she’d been doing while he and Laura were peeling the potatoes. “You’re not sharing with Cora?”

Stiles’s forehead furrowed. “No? I mean, we’re close, but...that would be weird.”

While Derek was attempting to puzzle that out—Stiles didn’t seem like someone who’d be _shy_ about his relationship, even if he knew how heightened their senses were—Stiles spread his arms wide, with jazz-hands enthusiasm.

“So it looks like I’ll be sharing with you, roomie! Boys’ night, huh?”

Derek could feel his eyebrows shooting up his forehead, his nostrils flaring in agitation. Fortunately, Stiles only lasted a few seconds before breaking, bending his leanly muscular body forward in laughter, his right hand clutching the loose fabric at his chest.

“Worth it,” he said, wiping his eyes and straightening back up. “God, your face.”

“I don’t understand you,” Derek said, flatly, to disguise the fact that he was beginning to feel like he’d been stuck on a tilt-a-whirl for too long. Being around Stiles for even this short amount of time sent his mind spinning, his stomach churning—unpleasantly, he thought, but there was still a strange temptation to get back in line for another ride.

Stiles grinned at him. “That’s a common problem. But no, I think I’m camping out downstairs. There’s a fold-out couch or something there—in your den.” His eyebrows waggled; Derek definitely wasn’t imagining the emphasis this time.

He ignored it, like he was ignoring so many things tonight.

All of this was Cora’s problem, not his. And his mom’s...he should probably tell her, if Cora hadn’t already. But it could wait. As jarring as Stiles’s presence was, Derek couldn’t sense anything about him that felt like a threat. The worst thing about him, really, was how _easily_ he’d already begun to fit into their Pack dynamic—deferring to the Alpha, playfully testing boundaries with the other betas, and respecting that rather than blundering around on his own, he needed to wait to be shown around their...den.

Derek shook his head slightly. Stiles was already rubbing off on him.

“There’s a cupboard downstairs, but those sheets are scratchy and probably full of dust; we haven’t used them since the last time my uncle was here.” Derek opened the door for Stiles, then followed him inside, gesturing to the freshly scrubbed dining room table. “Wait here, I’ll bring you nicer ones.”

Stiles, of course, followed him upstairs without a moment’s hesitation, poking his nose into the rooms they passed, asking a stream of questions that Derek found himself answering with increasing detail. By the time they’d made Stiles’s bed and Derek had escaped back upstairs to his blissfully quiet room, his head was swimming.

At least Stiles was leaving in the—well, not the _morning_; he’d be there through lunch and a chunk of the afternoon. His flight was a _red eye_, he’d said, winking. It was unfortunate, he’d added, because he’d always preferred blue ones. Or _green_, if he really had his choice.

Derek lay in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling, wondering what it meant that Stiles even knew that the Hales, as a family of Born wolves stretching back generations, all had beta-blue eyes, rather than the more common Bitten-gold. He must’ve seen Cora shifted. Maybe he’d even asked her to, when he’d found out what she was. Stiles seemed like the kind of person who’d be curious about that sort of thing—who’d want to touch the tip of her fangs, to watch her extend and retract her claws.

It didn’t occur to Derek until he was just on the edge of sleep that Cora, like Laura and their mother, had dark brown eyes when she wasn’t shifted. Derek was the only one who’d inherited his father’s human eyes—splashed with brown in the middle, but otherwise ringed in shades of green.

***

It was snowing when Derek woke up.

The realization was a slow, quiet one; snow wasn’t like rain, which announced its presence by lashing at the windows and hammering violently at the roof, rattling the metal vents like dozens of claw-footed creatures were trying to force their way inside.

Snow was softer, milder: deceptively so, sometimes. By the time its muffled sounds had filtered through Derek’s still sleep-heavy senses, it must’ve been snowing for hours. Probably all night, from the looks of it; Derek pulled his curtains aside to peer out at the thick white layers carpeting their yard and dusting the dark green treeline.

It felt like Christmas, he thought, languid with contentment, breathing in the warm scent of pumpkin, cinnamon, and chocolate reheating in the oven. That, plus the sound of the heat kicking on somewhere in the house, was probably what had woken him. Werewolves typically ran a few degrees warmer than regular humans, and all the Hales tended to prefer long-sleeved shirts and sweaters over artificially heated air, until the temperature dropped low enough to make it unavoidable.

He glanced out at the snow again, touching his fingertips to the slightly chilled glass. Even with the fresh snowfall, it didn’t seem that cold yet, although..._Stiles_, he thought, suddenly remembering the human who must’ve spent the night shivering in the basement. Derek had given him one fleece-lined blanket but should’ve piled on one or two more, should’ve...he stopped himself, shaking his head and snapping the curtain back into place. That was Cora’s responsibility. It didn’t matter that Derek’s night had been...oddly enjoyable, leaving his mind calm, his limbs loose, leading to one of the best night’s sleep he’d had in a while.

Derek was glad to see _Cora_ happy, that was all. He still had a few misgivings about Stiles, but most of them were getting hard to hold onto. Cora might’ve actually found someone who was worth dating: funny, well-read, almost dizzyingly intelligent, with a sharp wit that balanced out his enthusiastically open friendliness and kept it from being cloying.

He was probably in the kitchen with the rest of the family now; Derek had slept more soundly than usual and should head down before he lost his chance at breakfast. He could hear the oven door opening, then the metallic clatter of the baking tray against the stovetop. Probably Cora, refusing to use an oven mitt.

He glanced down at his flannel pajama pants—patterned with fluffy bunnies, because Laura thought she was funny—then scratched along his jawline. His beard was starting to feel a little scraggly. He should trim it first, maybe. Take a quick shower and change into something more appropriate for guests.

Thirty minutes later, after showering, trimming his beard, getting dressed, changing his mind and switching to a different sweater, putting gel in his hair, rinsing it out, then trying the gel again, Derek shut his room door and casually made his way downstairs. 

Cora was sitting alone at the dining room table, scrolling through her phone while drinking coffee and periodically stabbing her fork into a slice of pumpkin bread. From the looks of the crumbs scattered across her plate, it’d once been at least a quarter of the remaining loaf. There were also a few flecks of scrambled eggs left in a big bowl in the middle of the table, and Derek could smell the tantalizing evidence of an empty tray of sausages.

Derek meant to ask if there was any food left—although he was strongly leaning towards a disappointing and unsurprising no. What he said instead was, “Where’s Stiles?”

Cora arched an eyebrow and slowly looked up from her phone, chewing deliberately through another mouthful of chocolate-chip-studded pumpkin before answering. “Having a snowball fight with Laura. Did you put on _cologne_?”

“No,” Derek said, because he hadn’t. He _hated_ cologne, like any self-respecting werewolf. Which included everyone but the uncle who’d sent him a bottle for Christmas. Derek had dabbed a tiny amount on the side of his neck before immediately realizing it was a terrible decision and shoving his head back under the sink to wash it off.

“Mhm,” Cora said, going back to her food and what looked like an online version of the Sunday comics.

Derek considered stealing her plate, acknowledged that she would absolutely and without hesitation stab him with her fork, and poured himself a mug of coffee instead. He was drinking it and definitely not sulking when his mom entered the room, letting in a draft of cold air and stamping snow off her boots.

“I scouted out some trees for tomorrow; there’s a good patch near the lake,” she said, bending down to unlace her boots before approaching the table. “Cora, is that Derek’s slice? You were supposed to leave that for your brother.”

“Sorry,” Cora said unrepentantly, finishing it off.

Their mom trailed her fingers along the side of Derek’s neck, then did the same to Cora as she crossed the room, drawn like a caffeine-deprived magnet to the coffeepot on the sideboard. “You should join them outside, honey. You’ve always liked building snowmen, and Stiles appears to be struggling.”

Derek snorted quietly into his mug, not making any attempt to mask the sound. Cora despised snow. Or, if not the snow specifically, anything having to do with the concept of having _fun_ in it.

When he looked up, he found his mother looking expectantly at him.

“You mean me?” he asked, startled. “But shouldn’t Cora...”

“Just because I brought him here doesn’t mean I should have to be the one to babysit him,” Cora said. She drained the last of her coffee and stood up, shaking her dark hair free from its loose ponytail. “I’m gonna go take a shower. I’ll take care of the dishes later, Mom.”

Which was how Derek somehow found himself outside, showing Stiles how to pack snow together so it would hold when they stacked it into progressively smaller round blocks.

“Balls; the word you’re searching for is _balls_,” Stiles corrected, grinning at him in that way that had inspired Derek’s awkward attempt to change the terminology to begin with.

“Doesn’t matter,” Derek said stubbornly. “You’re still not paying attention.”

“I _am_,” Stiles protested. He slipped in a slushy patch and laughed in thanks when Derek automatically caught him by the arm. “I grew up in Beacon Hills, dude. It’s Northern California, yeah, but not so north we get snow. At least, never thick enough to make shit out of it.”

“You have to make the base stable enough to hold the rest up. Especially if you want it to last any length of time.” Derek kicked Stiles’s last attempt apart, ignoring his flailing complaints. “Try again.”

Stiles grumbled a few things under his breath that Derek pretended not to hear, but his next attempt was significantly better.

“There,” he said triumphantly as he finally helped Derek set the head on top, his cheeks pink from exertion, his eyes sparkling in a way that made Derek feel warmer than any coat could have—which he’d completely forgotten to put on before coming outside.

The fact that Stiles hadn’t even commented on Derek’s lightweight cable-knit sweater and obvious lack of scarf or hat—while Stiles was bundled up to his ears—was yet another sign that he knew exactly what the Hales were.

“Do you...” Derek glanced back at the house, realizing suddenly that Laura must’ve left them alone a long time ago. “When did Cora tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Stiles’s question was genuine enough that Derek hesitated, not wanting to make a mistake if he’d been reading all this wrong. “About...” he said, meaningfully, lifting his bare hands, which he’d been packing snow with for the last hour, then pointing to his chest to indicate the coat that he very clearly was not wearing.

“Oh, uh, about you?” Stiles asked, brushing his face with his woolen mitten, in a nervous gesture that looked like he was attempting to scratch his nose but only managing to smear powdery streaks of snow across his cheek. “I mean. She talks about all you guys, you know? Laura too, and your mom. But uh. She knows that I...and you...” He laughed awkwardly, doing some complicated movement with his mitten-clad hands that Derek didn’t understand. “And we’re both interested in history and stuff, so I guess it just naturally came up after a while, and I just...I mean, it was never in a weird way or anything.”

Derek frowned at him. He’d gotten used to Stiles’s sometimes nebulous speaking patterns—he had a way of suddenly branching off into seemingly unrelated topics that always linked back in interesting ways—but he’d lost the thread of this one.

“Oh. _Ohhhhhhh_,” Stiles breathed after a few strangely tense moments during which Derek genuinely had no idea what to say. “Shit, you meant... Dude. I’ve known Cora was a werewolf pretty much since the minute I met her.”

That was impossible, unless...Derek let his nostrils flare wide, searching out those hints he’d missed in seemingly human scents before. No gunpowder, so heavily used it soaked into the skin, no matter how carefully it’d been scrubbed clean. And no sharp tang of magic, skilfully masked but always present if you knew what to search for. Stiles was human. 100%, completely human, although starting to smell rather distinctly of sweat and new spikes of anxiety and embarrassment.

“God, I hate when you guys do that,” Stiles sighed, lifting his arm to sniff at his armpit, then scrunching up his nose when its snubbed tip met the scratchy wool of his coat. He rubbed at it again, this time with the back of his mitten, managing to wipe away the melting bits of snow. “I know you’re checking for like, chemosignals and stuff, which is invasive as fuck by the way, but you should also know that Laura is _ruthless_ in snowball fights, and Cora dragged me upstairs for breakfast before I had a chance to take a shower this morning, okay.”

“You smell fine,” Derek said, which was true. “You’re also human.”

“You got me,” Stiles said, uselessly snapping his mittened fingers together while pointing at Derek.

“I mean you’re not a shifter or any sort of magic-user,” Derek clarified. Druids, mages, or emissaries would know about the supernatural side of their world. But that only left hunters, and while Derek didn’t always have the best judgment with people...he watched as Stiles attempted to brace himself on their newly-finished snowman, sending his hand straight through its rounded shoulder.

“Shit,” Stiles said, stumbling back and nearly tripping himself into a snow-covered bush before Derek caught him. “Dammit, I’m not usually this clumsy, it’s just all this fucking snow.”

“You’re Cora’s year, aren’t you? So you’ve been in New York for four years?” Derek asked, helping Stiles brush wet clumps out snow out from underneath his coat collar. He discarded that half-formed notion; there was no way Stiles was from a hunting family.

“Yeah, but they keep the campus pretty clear, and when I’m outside I’m usually on my way somewhere. Not just.” He waved his arms, not seeming to notice how narrowly he missed the snowman with one particularly large sweep. “I don’t spend a lot of time out _in_ it, you know? Mostly just trying to keep it from soaking through my shoes or making me late to class.”

“I like the snow,” Derek said. He hesitated, then added, “Building snowmen, making snow angels, it’s something that my sisters have never really been into, but ever since I was a kid, I’d do this every year with my...” He trailed off, feeling cold licking around that wound. “I haven’t done this in a while. It’s been nice.”

Stiles smiled at him, his mouth softer than Derek knew it could look. “Yeah,” he said, making it sound like he understood the gaps Derek was leaving. “I’m glad. That you’ve been having fun, I mean, instead of just being trapped out here making sure I didn’t freeze to death or something.”

Derek smiled back, just a little, ducking his head to avoid noticing how much Stiles’s eyes brightened in response.

He completely forgot to ask more questions probing into how exactly Stiles knew about werewolves, if no one had actually _told_ him.

***

“Shit,” Stiles said, clutching the sides of his head, alternately staring out the window and at the TV screen, which was displaying a very discouraging weather map. “Shit shit shit I lost track of time, I _knew_ I should’ve left for the airport earlier, oh my god.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Derek’s mom wasn’t using her Alpha voice, but it was still soothing enough for Stiles to let go of his hair, leaving tufts sticking up haphazardly. “All the flights for tonight have been cancelled, Stiles. You would’ve been stuck there until the snow cleared, which they’re saying could take days. It’s better that we found out before anyone tried to drive you.”

Stiles’s mouth twisted, like he wanted to argue but knew that he couldn’t. “My dad,” he said quietly, layers of guilt and despair sinking into those two words.

“Why don’t you call him?” Derek’s mom said gently. “We’ll give you some privacy.”

Her stern look meant that her children would both leave the room _and_ tune their hearing down as much as possible. She probably would’ve sent them out into the woods if the swiftly-falling snow hadn’t already been piled up knee-high in spots.

It’d been snowing off and on all day, but lightly enough for most of the morning that none of them had thought much of it. By the early afternoon, when it had shifted to something decidedly closer to a snow_storm_, they’d been preoccupied with lunch, finishing up some work before the holidays truly kicked in (Derek’s mom), distracted by a fresh churn of confusing emotions that were in desperate need of repression (Derek), unconcerned with tracking events that didn’t directly concern them (Laura and Cora), and simply inexperienced with what it meant for travel plans when that much snow was falling from the sky (Stiles).

Which meant that by the time Derek’s mom had emerged from her study, realized what was going on, and retrieved the rest of them from the board game they’d been animatedly arguing over in the basement, it was already too late to attempt the drive to the airport.

“It’s no one’s fault,” his mom said, touching Derek lightly on the back as they made their way upstairs.

Although it was true—they couldn’t control the weather, and she was right about the state of the airport—it didn’t keep Derek from feeling like he might’ve been able to do _something_ to keep that misery from soaking into Stiles’s scent. Even now, he stopped on the stairs, obeying his Alpha’s command to keep from listening in on Stiles’s conversation, but struggling with an opposing urge that was trying to pull him back to Stiles’s side.

“Derek,” his mom called, and he looked up, then past her to where Cora was heading towards her room at the top of the stairs, not seeming overly bothered by the hint of tears they would’ve all been able to hear in the back of Stiles’s voice once he realized he wouldn’t be making it home for Christmas.

“Don’t you _care_?” he snapped finally, with enough built-up anger that Cora turned.

“Yeah?” she said. “It sucks; I feel bad for him. But like Mom said, there’s nothing we can do about it, and it’s better that he’s stuck here than trying to sleep on airport chairs with a bunch of ragey travelers.”

“But you should _be_ with him,” Derek gritted out, furious with her for making him say it and with himself for how much he hated shaping the words. “He’s your boyfriend, you can’t just act like—”

Laura let out a sharp bark of laughter, and Cora simply stared at him before shaking her head very, very slowly. “For fuck’s sake, Derek,” his heartless little sister said.

Derek’s gaze shot from her eye roll—accompanied by a strange surge of distaste rolling through her scent—to Laura’s attempts to restrain her untimely mirth, then to his mom, who was giving him a very gentle expression that meant he’d been very stupid.

“I thought I told you yesterday, honey. Cora’s not _dating_ Stiles. He’s just a friend from college.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Cora said again. “Have you been hitting on him this entire time thinking he was my boyfriend? That’s kinda fucked up.”

“I wasn’t _hitting_,” Derek said faintly, until he saw the smirk tugging at the edges of her mouth and realized she was teasing him.

“Now is not the time to be talking about this,” their mom said, her tone firm enough that Cora flipped her ponytail over her shoulder and entered her room, shutting the door, but not before giving Derek a final, pitying headshake that he probably deserved.

Laura, on the other hand, schooled her expression and waited until Derek was at the top of the stairs to give him a tight side hug that made his bones creak in protest, then dragged him into her room to play card games. She claimed it was to keep her from getting bored, but Derek knew she just wanted to stop him from stewing alone.

His family was frustrating sometimes, in the way all siblings could be, but they always knew when to step in before he got too stuck in his own head.

Now that he was thinking about it, no one had ever actually _said_ Cora was bringing a significant other. He’d just assumed...well, it wasn’t like any of them had brought _friends_ home for the holidays, either. That was usually an invitation you reserved for someone who meant a lot to you.

“He does,” Cora said, settling cross-legged onto Laura’s eye-searingly multicolored shag rug, having decided she was bored waiting for the all-clear from their mother. “He’s not my _best_ friend or anything, but we’re bros.” She rolled her eyes and grimaced; that was clearly a Stiles line she regretted quoting. “I’m into women—when I’m into anyone. I thought you knew that.”

“I do,” Derek said. “But I thought...”

“Chad was a mistake, and we will not be talking about him.”

Cora’s jaw clenched as she ground out the words, and Laura reached over to grip the back of her neck: a light press and release that their mother had used to calm them since they were small.

“You know who _is_ into both,” Cora said, her eyes sparking back to something dangerous.

“Stiles,” she and Laura finished in unison.

That actually seemed to surprise Cora; she and Derek both turned to narrow their eyes at their older sister.

Laura took advantage of her siblings’ distraction to set a card down then slap the pile violently. “Slapjack!” she crowed in triumph. “And it’s pretty obvious; Stiles is _not_ subtle. Plus you told me like three years ago that you met him in some club on campus, Cora. The LGBT+ one with the hot girl who bakes gross cookies.”

Cora tilted her eyebrows to acknowledge that and set down the queen of hearts to start a new round.

Derek did remember a similar conversation with Cora around the time Stiles’s name had first started to filter into phone calls. She’d been less specific with him, though; he’d always assumed she meant the kind of club that had drinks and dancing. Which had helped to, probably unfairly, color his initial opinion of the type of person Stiles was: just one more guy in that obnoxious crowd of frat boy partiers who occasionally showed up to class for exam days. Derek had certainly never been interested in _meeting_ him.

“He was opinionated and annoying and I wanted to punch him at first,” Cora said, watching intently to be sure Derek wasn’t putting down a jack. “And then three weeks later we were hanging out. He kinda has that effect on people.”

“Some _much_ faster than others,” Laura murmured, shifting her fingers to claws in preparation for another slap, which was absolutely against Hale Family Game Night rules.

“Your mom told me you were up here,” Stiles said from the doorway about fifteen minutes later, watching warily as Laura twisted to check for holes in the back of her sweater and Cora licked her tongue threateningly across her extended fangs. Derek had a cut across his cheek that was in the midst of healing.

If anything about their family had been a secret before, it definitely wasn’t now.

“Should I, uh.” Stiles pointed behind himself, starting to angle back out of the room. “I’m not sure I’m on board with the rules of whatever this game is.”

“Laura was cheating,” Cora said, popping her teeth back to human. “As long as you play fairly, no one will have to bite you.”

“Hah hah,” Stiles said without any hint of actual laughter, but he sat down anyway, accepting the space Derek’s sisters immediately made next to him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d ask if this tendency towards violence was a Born wolves thing, because my buddy Scott would be running with his tail between his legs right about now.”

Derek snorted. “It’s just my sisters,” he said, which made both Laura and Cora reach simultaneously to punch him in both shoulders. He lifted his eyebrows at Stiles, who laughed—this time for real.

“So your friend’s a wolf,” Laura said as she dealt Stiles into a game of UNO.

Stiles nodded. “Bitten by a rogue Alpha when we were in high school. Initially terrifying for both of us but later on cool as fuck. Even if it took him a while to see it that way.”

He chatted easily as they played, the sorrow clinging to his scent slowly dissipating, although it didn’t fade entirely.

Outside, the snow kept falling. Derek knew it was wrong to feel grateful for it, but he sent a quiet thanks heavenward anyway, playing a Take Two card just to watch Stiles spark and sputter in response, focusing all his attention on Derek and card-based revenge.

Derek was having an amazing Christmas.

***

“I can snowshoe!” Stiles insisted the next morning. “I’m an expert snowshoer. If there’s an Olympic category, I could probably qualify for it. I’ve done it...so many times.”

“You know we can hear when you lie,” Laura said.

Stiles deflated. “Okay, so I’ve never worn a snowshoe in my life. But how hard can it be?”

***

“We’re going to pretend this didn’t happen,” Stiles mumbled, his voice muffled by Derek’s coat collar, which his face was pressed against. At certain angles, the tip of his cold nose would brush against the back of Derek’s neck, Derek would involuntarily shiver, and Stiles would draw back in apology.

During those moments, Derek would silently curse his lack of control over his frustratingly human reactions.

He shifted Stiles up a little higher, keeping his hands securely braced under Stiles’s thighs. They were still about a mile from home, and Stiles hadn’t stopped talking. Not that Derek minded.

“I can walk,” Stiles tried again. “The speed might not be up to your wolfy standards, but you don’t actually have to carry me, dude.”

“You were leaving a trail of blood on the snow,” Derek reminded him. His grin went sharp when he dropped his fangs, knowing Stiles would be able to hear the difference. “That’s how you attract wolves, you know.”

“Not the worst thing in the world,” Stiles said. This time, when his nose brushed against Derek’s skin, it felt intentional.

Derek shivered and clenched his fingers tighter against Stiles’s thighs, then just as quickly loosened his grip. It was far safer to return to their ongoing argument.

“This is why we told you to stay home.”

“No one likes a know-it-all,” Stiles sighed. “So this is something you do every year, huh?”

“Carry injured humans home from the woods? No. We usually save that for special occasions.”

“Wolf’s got jokes,” Stiles said comfortably, letting his body weight go limp with the complete assurance that Derek would be able to shoulder it. “The tree. Do you always wait until Christmas Eve? Do you always walk twenty miles into the wilderness before you find one worthy of being dragged _back_ twenty miles?”

“It’s three miles to the lake.” Derek couldn’t resist adding, “Which we _told you_ before we left.”

After a bit of squirming and an annoyed grunt, Stiles flicked Derek on the ear, then dropped his mitten in the snow while attempting to put it back on.

“I’ll bite your fingers off if you do that again,” Derek lied, stooping down to pick it up. The snowfall had tapered off a few hours earlier, but it was still cold enough for human extremities to need protection.

Stiles didn’t even have the decency to let his heartbeat flutter at the threat. “Whatever turns you on,” he said, making Derek nearly drop _him_ this time.

“Ow,” Stiles complained, grabbing at Derek until their stability returned. “Fragile human here.”

“That’s not what you’ve been saying all day.”

“Yeah, well,” Stiles grumbled. “None of you _told me_ that snowshoes give you incapacitating blisters. If I’d known that, I would’ve...”

“Still insisted on coming?”

“Yeah,” he admitted.

Derek couldn’t blame him; he likely would’ve done the same, under the circumstances. Although Stiles had gotten resigned over the past day to the fact that he’d be spending Christmas across the country from his dad, he still went through periodic spikes of sorrow. Being left to sit alone in an empty house while his host family tramped off to the woods in one of their holiday traditions...Derek could see the lack of appeal.

“We always get our tree on Christmas Eve,” he confirmed. He could feel Stiles perking up in attention, his chin propped against Derek’s back as he listened. Derek did his best to walk smoothly without jostling him. “I don’t really know why. I think it started because my parents both used to work so much they didn’t have time to start decorating earlier. And then after a while, it turned into a tradition, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “I know how that goes.”

There was one of those sorrow-spikes—mild enough this time that Derek thought it might ebb away if they kept talking.

“We don’t go to the lake every year,” he continued, answering Stiles’s rapidfire questions in order. “Sometimes we spend most of the day searching the woods for the perfect tree. Or there’ll be one right at the tree line. And sometimes my mom likes to go on her own a day or two earlier and scout for good ones. She used to...that’s time she used to spend with my dad, before. When we were all little enough to get bored and restless if we were out too long without a specific plan.”

It was quiet for a bit after that. Derek kept up a steady pace, listening to the crunch of the snow-packed ground under his snowshoes, sniffing the air periodically to be certain he was still heading in the right direction. They were only a short distance from the house when Stiles finally spoke again.

“My parents used to put up our tree after I went to bed, so everything would be transformed when I woke up. Tree, lights, presents, everything. They’d say it was Santa and his elves, even though I knew since I was like...four that Santa was fake. Scott cried when I told him.”

His scent went complicated when he paused; Derek could pick out what felt like loss, longing, but with odd notes of happiness.

“I woke up one year—I think when I was seven. I got out of bed, figuring I’d go tearing down the stairs to rip into my presents early, fake Santa be damned...I was kind of a terrible kid.”

Derek chuckled. “Should I sound surprised?”

Stiles dug his chin into Derek’s back in punishment, but Derek could hear the smile in his voice when he continued. “I stopped at the top of the stairs; I don’t know why. But I ended up just sitting there and watching them. They never saw me. They were wrestling the tree in from where my dad had hidden it in the garage; it was way too tall for our living room ceiling, and my dad was teasing my mom about it, about how she never thought about the practicalities of things when she bought them, she just went for what was beautiful, what she loved the most.”

He paused again, and Derek squeezed the side of his leg, just a little, to let him know he was listening.

“It wasn’t mean though, not at all. My parents were never like that. My dad just sounded..._happy_. That’s what I remember the most. They spent hours putting Christmas together for me, just _being_ together.” Stiles stopped, then added wistfully, “They were so happy.”

He didn’t need to say more for Derek to fill in the rest. Traditions changed or sometimes even ended entirely when you lost someone. Derek was lucky to have the rest of his family: his sisters, the bane of his existence but still the most important people in his life; and his mom, who had unfailingly made Derek feel safe and loved in a world that didn’t always seem to have a place to fit him.

What was it like for Stiles, who only had himself and his dad? Did the two of them decorate their tree and wrap presents together now? Would Stiles’s dad even put up a tree this year, if no one was there to make it matter?

“We could FaceTime your dad,” Derek offered. “If you wanted, when we’re decorating tonight. It won’t be the same, but it might feel more like Christmas for you both that way.”

Stiles inhaled sharply. “That’s...thanks, dude. I really mean that. He’s actually picking up an extra shift tonight though. He’s a sheriff; he said it was good that he could send another deputy home to their family.”

That put one of Stiles’s earlier comments into context; he would know what it was like to have a parent who worked long or unusual hours that didn’t always leave room for holidays.

“Maybe tomorrow then,” Derek said, feeling uncomfortable pressing, but wanting Stiles to know it was an open invitation. “Or whatever would work for him. I know we’re not your family, but you’re both welcome here any time.”

Stiles took another ragged breath, one that sounded suspiciously wet this time. “You’re kind of amazing, Derek Hale.”

Derek flushed with embarrassed pleasure at the unexpected praise. He was saved from any need to come up with a reply by the house coming into view, and by Stiles kicking his legs in excitement at the sight, managing to painfully whack Derek with the side of one of his snowshoes.

“Your werewolf healing would come in handy right about now,” Stiles said morosely once they were inside and he’d slowly and painfully peeled his socks off his blistered feet.

Derek had been exaggerating about the blood, but a couple of the blisters had popped when Stiles had refused to stop walking on them. They’d need to be cleaned and probably disinfected. Derek wasn’t sure if they had anything like that in the house anymore; he’d need to check the cabinets. He was also realizing now he should’ve carried Stiles straight into the bathroom instead of depositing him on the couch like he’d demanded.

Humans _were_ fragile. The skin on Stiles’s feet was rubbed raw in places, particularly on the heels, with a few bruises blooming along the tops, where the snowshoe straps must’ve been too tight.

“Shit, no, don’t touch—_oh_,” Stiles sighed, his tone shifting so suddenly to a semi-moan that Derek had to stop himself from letting go of where he’d taken hold of the arch of Stiles’s left foot. “Fuck. I forgot about the pain drain, yes please, more of that, do the other too.”

“Keep making those noises and I’ll stop,” Derek muttered, focusing his attention on the black veins streaking up his arm, rather than on the flutter of Stiles’s eyelashes and the curve of his throat as he leaned back against the couch and pushed his foot more firmly into Derek’s grasp.

By the time he finished draining enough of the pain from both feet, Stiles had gone languid and boneless.

“Don’t fall asleep, we still have to clean them,” Derek said, poking at one of the more intact blisters to make Stiles finally jolt more or less upright.

“You’re kind of an asshole, Derek Hale,” he snarled.

“Don’t you mean amazing?” Derek asked, in what was admittedly a kind of asshole move.

Stiles’s cheeks flushed red, but he didn’t actually protest. He struggled to get to his feet instead, only going through a minimal amount of complaining this time before letting Derek pick him up again.

While Stiles sat on the edge of the bathtub, rinsing his feet and hissing, Derek searched all their bathroom cabinets, then checked the basement and garage for good measure. He found a few bottles of hydrogen peroxide that Stiles absolutely refused to pour over his torn skin, plus a tube of some sort of antiseptic ointment that Stiles squinted at then squeezed out in generous globs.

“You don’t spend a lot of time with humans, huh,” Stiles said as he was bandaging his feet—deftly, seeming to have a fair amount of practice with this part of the process.

“I’m in grad school,” Derek said, annoyed.

Stiles tilted a grin at him. “Yeah, I know, at Columbia. Doesn’t mean you actually _talk_ to any of them, though.”

Derek resisted acknowledging out loud that his flatmate and closest friends at school were werewolves. None of them had planned it that way, and they obviously hung out with other classmates. It was just a lot easier to share living space with someone who had the same heightened senses. His freshman year of undergrad, Derek had lived with an Axe-soaked roommate for two weeks before putting in a desperate request for a room transfer. It’d only been granted because apparently the roommate had put in a matching request, citing “murder eyebrows” and an unsubstantiated fear of being strangled in his sleep.

Stiles snorted with laughter when Derek told him this on their way back to the living room, Stiles shuffling this time, using an arm around Derek’s shoulders to brace himself.

“Plus, my dad was human,” Derek said, once they’d both settled onto the couch and queued up a stupid Christmas movie on Netflix. The rest of his family still hadn’t come back yet; just because his mom had found promising trees didn’t mean that anyone would actually _agree_ on them. When Stiles had admitted defeat and started trudging back from the hike, the debate was still in its early stages. It could be hours yet, since decorating rarely started in earnest until after dinner.

“He looks a lot like you,” Stiles said, then, before Derek could ask: “I saw the photos in the hall. And there are albums in the basement. I flipped through a few; figured if they’re on display like that no one would care.”

He didn’t ask pressing questions, which Derek appreciated. It’d been years since he’d lost his dad, like he suspected was true for Stiles and his mom, but the pain always felt fresher at certain times of year. Christmas was one of them. The happier the memories, the harder it was to deal with the fact that any new ones you formed would no longer include that loved one.

Maybe Derek should’ve stopped loving Christmas somewhere along the way, but he never had.

“Knock yourself out; anything down there’s free rein. Just don’t stumble across one of Cora’s journals if you want to keep all your limbs.”

“Yeah, like Cora would ever keep a journal,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes at the warning.

Derek huffed a laugh in response.

“Speaking of Cora,” Stiles said casually. “She told me you thought we were dating. I mean, me and her, not me and y—I mean, I’m _not_. Dating. Anyone. I’m single. Single and ready to m...yeah, no. That went a lot more smoothly in my head.”

Derek dropped his hand back to Stiles’s feet, which Stiles had shoved in his lap when they sat down. He drained a few more pain-thick threads, watching as the dark red splotches across Stiles’s cheeks faded back to his pale, mole-spotted skin. Did he tan or burn, Derek wondered. He probably had splashes of freckles across his broad shoulders, which would bloom darker during the summer months. Maybe he’d want to come back here next year, revisiting the lake when its waters were crisp and cool and refreshing, and the path to it was far smoother.

“There were a few crossed wires,” Derek said finally.

Stiles jerked his head towards him, seeming startled that they weren’t just going to pretend that hadn’t happened. His scent went warm and spicy, and he opened his mouth, then shut it with an audible clack, giving off sudden currents of uncertainty. A lot of bluster without as much actual confidence underlying it, Derek thought. Which was stupid. Stiles was brilliant and hilarious and gorgeous, none of which were words Derek typically assigned to people around him.

“I had some wrong impressions about you,” Derek admitted, since at least one of them should go for honesty.

Stiles’s eyes sparked with interest, his lips parting again as he leaned towards Derek. “Like what?”

Or maybe that was a stupid idea. Derek let his fingers rest lightly on the bandages wrapping Stiles’s feet, making sure not to put pressure on any bruises. “She tells me things sometimes. Your name comes up. It’s a hard one to forget.”

“Right, _Derek_. Wait until you hear my real first name—except you never will.” Stiles smirked, his chemosignals still a mix of wary curiosity. “Okay, lay it on me. What has Cora said about me?”

“I thought you were a player,” Derek admitted, then, through Stiles’s responding snort of amusement, pressed on with, “She talks about these hook up parties.”

“And it’s not really her thing, so she got dragged along by her friends, including some weird guy named Stiles?”

Derek nodded. “She’d stick around for a couple drinks, then head out before people started passing out under tables.” He felt like he knew Stiles better by now, but his mouth flattened unhappily anyway. “I always thought it was a dick move to leave her alone like that.”

Stiles squinted at Derek, then tossed his head back in a short burst of laughter. “Because I’d be off hooking up with some rando while she chastely walked home alone?”

That didn’t deserve an audible response; Derek gave an affirmative with his eyebrows and a slight flare of his nostrils. It still wasn’t the most pleasant thought. He was beginning to wish he’d never brought it up.

“Okay, first of all,” Stiles said, lifting one finger—the middle one, before he winked and folded it back down. “I have had plenty of sex with people, and I enjoy it, and I’m never gonna be ashamed about that, dude.”

Derek tried to protest—he hadn’t meant it like _that_, like he was some sort of prude—but Stiles waved him down, wanting to finish whatever multi-point list he’d launched into.

“No, it’s okay, Cora told me—” he flushed a little— “that you don’t date much. That’s a you thing, and I respect that. I haven’t always been _as_ picky as you, because frankly sometimes it just feels good, and that’s all that matters when you’re both having fun. But.” He snickered as he drew out that word with an emphasis on the _t_, then settled his face back into a sterner expression, waggling his long forefinger at Derek. “I _am_ pickier than you or your lying little sister are giving me credit for. Especially when it comes to actual relationships, which I haven’t done much of, because _that_ is something I take very seriously.”

Derek thought again about how Stiles described his parents’ relationship: a loving, balanced, devoted, humor-filled partnership. It was something Derek had seen with his own parents and, when he thought about that part of his life at all, it summed up what he wanted for himself.

There was one point that was more important to address, though.

“Lying?” he asked with a scowl. Cora might be a menace sometimes, but she was still his sister.

Stiles unfolded another finger. “_Second_ of all, I’m not gonna spill your sister’s secrets here, but while she may have been walking home alone, it _definitely_ wasn’t always before the parties got wild, and there are plenty of times where that walk would’ve been happening during daylight hours, if you know what I mean.”

Derek grimaced.

“And that face is why she’d give her brother little white lies over the phone, where he couldn’t pick out her heartbeat.” Stiles wiggled his toes—long and mobile like his fingers—triumphantly, which should have annoyed Derek or probably even grossed him out. Derek was giving up on having anything resembling normal reactions around Stiles.

“I wasn’t judging you,” he said, now that Stiles had stopped shushing him. “It’s not like I..._haven’t_.”

Stiles shrugged nonchalantly. “It matters more to you when you do, so it probably happens less often, and feels weirder to hear about other people who _don’t_ put as much thought into who they let jerk them off. Like I said, I get it. I’m not judging either.”

Derek tried his best not to react. He was a grown-ass werewolf whose pulse shouldn’t be throbbing into overdrive at the thought of someone else’s dick. Or—and this was where his fangs wanted to come out—that dick being touched by someone who _wasn’t him_.

Stiles was watching him thoughtfully. When their eyes met, he gave Derek a sudden, pleasantly slanted grin, then said, matter-of-factly, “While we’re in sharing mode, you should know that I’ve been hitting on you pretty much since the minute I got here. Which, considering you thought I was dating your sister, must’ve confirmed that whole jackass douche impression.”

“No,” Derek said. Maybe that should’ve been his reaction, but, “No, I’ve liked you since pretty much the minute you got here.”

Stiles abruptly pulled his legs away from Derek’s lap. Startled, Derek looked down, then back up to Stiles’s face, worrying that he shouldn’t have said that, that Stiles—

But Stiles was smiling at Derek, more softly and genuinely than he’d seen yet.

They stared at each other for what felt like long, drawn-out minutes, Derek’s heart thumping so fervently he thought even Stiles’s human ears must’ve been able to pick it out.

Naturally, Stiles was the first one to break the charged silence.

“So does this mean—”

Which, of course, was when all the women in Derek’s family finally piled through the door, carrying a snow-shedding Douglas fir that was at least twice as wide as the corner they’d cleared out for it.

***

Decorating went about as well as it ever did in the Hale household, which meant that after a lively debate and only two broken ornaments, Cora was banished outside to put up the lights by herself. From the bounce in her step as she slammed the front door behind her, Derek suspected that had been her goal to begin with. Then, following some animated whispering that Derek tuned out despite intense curiosity, Laura announced she and Stiles would be making dinner, which left Derek to handle the rest with his mom.

“You seem happy, honey,” his mom said when they were about halfway through their seemingly endless boxes of ornaments.

Derek, who’d apparently been humming Carol of the Bells while attaching hooks to a series of angel-winged ceramic wolves, bit back an instinctive deflection. He shrugged instead and pulled out one of the lumpy ornaments he’d hand-painted when he was six. He _was_ happy. It was stupid to be; Stiles would be heading back to campus in just a couple days, then graduating a few months later, after which this Christmas would turn into a fleeting memory. A _what if_ that Derek would rather not dwell on until he had to.

Avoidance hadn’t always worked well for Derek, but it was worth another try.

“What on earth are you cooking?” he asked when Laura and Stiles eventually joined them, both looking a little the worse for wear, like they’d had to actually wrestle the meal into submission. The kitchen was emitting an odd mixture of smells that he hadn’t been paying a huge amount of attention to; when he tilted his chin back and opened his mouth to filter through them better, Laura slapped her hand over his face.

Which, since it was Laura, meant she underestimated her strength and nearly knocked him sprawling.

“Stop attacking your brother and help us with the banisters,” his mother said, although Derek could see her mouth twitching in amusement—and could’ve sworn he caught the tail-end of a wink that was meant to exclude him.

“None of your beeswax, you’ll find out when we eat,” Laura said, roughly mussing Derek’s hair before helping him up. “I haven’t heard Cora in a while; do you think she’s fallen off the roof yet?”

Stiles squinted up at the ceiling, like he’d be able to hear anything through the second story and the attic. “Should we be worried about that?”

“Nah,” Laura said, snagging a candy cane out of a bowl Derek had just finished arranging. “We’ve all broken at least a couple bones that way. It heals.”

“Werewolves,” Stiles muttered. He trailed over to Derek’s side, his hands in his pockets. He had flour streaked along his shirt, down one pant leg, and across his right cheekbone. He was smiling and smelled strongly of cinnamon and contentment.

Derek brushed the backs of his fingers against Stiles’s throat, just above his rumpled shirt collar. Stiles jerked in surprise, then stilled after realizing what Derek was doing.

“So this is what it’s like when you get over the personal space issues, huh?” he said drowsily, blinking down at the thin black lines snaking along Derek’s wrist and forearm.

There wasn’t much pain left to drain, and Stiles seemed to be moving easily enough now, his wounds already on their way to healing. Derek reluctantly drew his hand away, this time definitely catching the knowing smiles his mom and Laura were exchanging.

He chose to ignore them.

***

Dinner didn’t end up being anything special enough to warranty the secrecy. They’d put together some sort of chicken-pasta-broccoli bake that tasted better than it looked, plus salad and a platter of garlic bread—half perfect, half badly blackened before they’d figured out the timing.

With Stiles sitting next to him, their knees occasionally bumping together under the table as Stiles leaned in to grab more food or to wildly gesticulate his way through a story, Derek thought it was one of the best meals he’d ever had.

“So is this another tradition?” Stiles asked somewhere close to midnight, sprawled out on the carpet by the tree, blinking sleepily up at the lights. “Your sisters dump their presents on you and go to bed while you wrap them?”

“They get impatient,” Derek said, flicking another strip of tape free with an extended claw. “And I used to like wrapping presents.”

“Win-win, until you got sick of it, huh.” Stiles rolled over to his side, propping his chin on his hand and now staring intently at Derek. “You know the tape dispenser literally has a tool for that. All those little metal teeth?”

Derek lifted his shoulders in a shrug and kept doing it his way.

“I think you’re fascinating,” Stiles said. Even with the room only lit by the muted glow of multicolored LEDs, Derek could see him reddening. “I mean the plural _you_, like werewolves. Shifters. Anyone who isn’t 100% human.”

“Ah,” Derek said, scrawling Cora’s name on the gift he’d just finished. “That’s disappointing.”

Stiles sat bolt upright, lifting his hands, palms out, to head off any miscommunication. “Shit, that’s not what I—that wasn’t supposed to be like, ‘you’re so _bizarre_, explain why you’re like this.’ Your claws are fucking awesome, yeah, but I just find people fascinating in general. Like, I started out thinking I’d do sociology until...”

He trailed off, his eyes narrowing when he finally noticed Derek’s smirk. “Hah. Right. I see what you did there. I’ve gotta say, dude, your flirting could use some work.”

“I can practice, if you want,” Derek said, enjoying the rapid flutter of emotions coursing through Stiles’s scent. “There are a lot of people on campus; maybe some of them would...”

Stiles let out a satisfying squawk of dismay. “No!” he yelped, so loudly that they both turned towards the staircase, wondering if that’d woken anyone.

After a few seconds of silence, Stiles continued in a much more even tone of voice, although his nerves were spiking wildly. “I mean, if that’s what you _wanted_, obviously that’s your call, but, uh. I know I can’t ask you for that yet, it’s not like I have any sort of claim on who you hit on or...sleep with, or whatever. But I was kinda hoping that we’d stick to just each other for a while.”

It was tempting to continue playing with Stiles, to tug out more of those deeply satisfying reactions, but Derek never had been able to keep up a player facade for long. He slipped into honest vulnerability instead: something else that hadn’t come easily to him before Stiles.

“You’d want that?” he asked.

During the rest of the school year, they’d be more than 200 miles apart. After that, the distance would likely stretch much farther. Derek could handle that—he was more than willing to find ways to make it work—but Stiles was...he’d want more, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t be satisfied with phone calls, with occasional long drives to spend a few hours physically together.

And they’d only just met; it’d been a few days, barely long enough to make any type of actual commitment, as much as Derek was aching to do so.

Stiles seemed to be reading the play of emotions across Derek’s face, because he scooted closer, reaching to take Derek’s hand.

“So I didn’t want to say this, in case it scared you off or something.” Stiles took in a long, bracing breath, tightening his fingers around Derek’s. “I’ve had a crush on you for like two years. I’m genuinely shocked that Cora never told you, because it’s been obnoxious and obvious and I spent _so_ much time quizzing her about you. She’s either a way better or way worse sister than I thought.”

“...but I’ve never _met_ you?” Derek phrased it like a question, wondering if he’d forgotten something, some incident from years earlier. But no, he’d never be able to forget Stiles.

When Stiles started to pull his hand away, seeming to take that as some sort of strange rejection, Derek squeezed his grip reassuringly. He had no idea what was going on, but he wanted to find out.

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles said, scratching his nose with his free hand. “I thought that’s what we were talking about the first night I was here, actually. Until I realized you meant...”

He curled his fingers sharply and bared his teeth in the worst attempt at a growl Derek had ever seen.

“So Cora told you about me,” Derek concluded. Not about being a werewolf—just about _him_.

“Not anything super personal,” Stiles was quick to say. He flattened his lips, then reluctantly added, “Although one time when we were _really_ drunk, she did tell me a little about a couple of your exes. We were halfway down the road, gonna hitch a ride to take them down, until Cora remembered they were both already in jail.”

Derek winced. Maybe it was better Stiles already knew, so he didn’t have to revisit those painful parts of his past.

Stiles stroked his thumb soothingly over the back of Derek’s hand, as though he had the ability to draw pain out. Strangely, Derek almost felt like it was working; his tension ebbed, muscles along his shoulders and back he hadn’t realized were clenched easing at Stiles’s steady touch.

“Mostly it was just the usual stuff. Like, you’re a history major, I’m in Classics,” Stiles said. “It was kind of a natural jumping off point. And then she told me you were bi, too, or maybe demi, I dunno. Potentially interested in dudes, was the relevant point.”

“So my sister was playing matchmaker,” Derek said. “Badly.”

“Well, she _is_ Cora,” Stiles laughed.

Derek glanced towards the stairs again, halfway expecting his sister to come flying out of bed to defend herself. Although Cora would probably sooner jump off a cliff than admit she’d played any role in the two of them sitting in the dark, hand in hand, talking about their future.

“Whenever she brought up her family, you just sounded..._amazing_,” Stiles said, with a sideways smirk and flutter of his eyelashes that made Derek’s heart do something stupid in response. “It made me want to get to know you, to talk about all this stuff in person. Then I got here and found out she was talking shit about me this entire time.”

“She wasn’t,” Derek said, realizing that now. “I’m not great at picking up hints.”

“Something I had to learn about you in person,” Stiles said, smiling, but with a hint of wariness lingering.

“Has it been...disappointing?” Derek asked. That was a common enough theme in his life: people would see his face, his body, and lose interest once they found out his personality didn’t match up to whatever they’d created in their head.

Stiles huffed out an unattractive noise that it took Derek a second to realize was an attempt to restrain laughter.

“God, Derek,” Stiles said. “I just wish I’d figured out a way to do this a whole lot sooner. You have _no idea_ how much I...I mean, the ticket thing was real, it was almost twice as expensive to fly out of Ithaca, but it took me two solid days to convince Cora to drive me. I swear when she pulled over to call you guys, I still thought she might’ve been planning to dump me by the side of the road.”

“I wanted to ask her to,” Derek admitted.

“Regretting that?” Stiles asked.

It was Derek’s turn to roll his eyes. He then looked pointedly down at where their bodies were aligned, pressed together hip to thigh, as close as they could get with their jeans in the way.

“Your eyebrows make a fair point,” Stiles said. He jiggled his leg, along with their arms, slightly; sitting still for this long was probably taking a bit of a toll on him.

Derek waited for him to process whatever he was trying to sift from his head into tangible words. While Stiles seemed like the kind of person who blurted out whatever he was thinking, Derek was finding that wasn’t exactly true. He’d stumble over his words sometimes while he was in the midst of them, but there was a lot simmering under the surface—plenty that Derek had barely been able to glimpse so far. He suspected it’d be a long time before he stopped wanting to dig for more.

“So yeah,” Stiles said eventually. “To answer your earlier question, I’m pretty invested here, if you’re up for giving this—us—a try. Now that I know you’re even _better_ in person, there’s not much chance of me being interested in anyone else.”

“You might change your mind,” Derek warned him.

“Doubtful. Stilinskis are known for stubbornness, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.”

Before Derek could figure out a response—Stiles was overwhelming, in the best possible kind of way—his hand was released abruptly.

“Hold that thought,” Stiles said, pointing down at him. “I’ll be right back.”

Derek sat in only mildly impatient confusion as Stiles rattled around the kitchen, opening cupboards, slamming drawers shut, and making shushing sounds at what sounded like a handful of forks that he’d loudly dropped across the floor.

When he finally reappeared, he was carrying a plate with one hand, the other cupping the air around the lit flame of a candle he must’ve dug out of the dusty back corner of some drawer.

“Your family’s gonna kill me for this, but it’s midnight, so it’s officially your birthday and they can suck it,” Stiles said as he carefully handed the plate down to Derek, then folded himself after it. He abruptly half-stood with a wince, fished two forks out of his back pocket, and settled into place again.

Derek stared at the large, squat candle labeling him the _BIRTHDAY BOY_ in baby blue, cartoonishly rounded letters.

“Happy birthday, Derek Hale,” Stiles said, his grin so wide it looked like it must hurt his face. “Blow out your candle and make a wish before it melts the entire slice.”

“Looks like it’s too late for that,” Derek replied. The candle, which was far too large and heavy for a single slice of cake, had already sunk halfway down. If he waited a few seconds longer, the message would probably narrow down to a more concise _BIRTHDAY_. Still accurate enough, Derek supposed, closing his eyes just long enough for the wish that’d been filtering through his thoughts all day.

“I was thinking Devil’s Food,” Stiles said, handing Derek a fork as soon as he freed the flattened cake from its wax-dripping burden. “Chocolate so dark and delicious it’s almost sinful. But Laura said this is more your style.”

Derek flicked a clump of jeans lint off the tines of his fork and took a bite. They’d gone with angel’s food—Laura’s idea of a joke—with spiced pumpkin mixed in to give its light, fluffy texture more flavor.

“A belated apology for eating all your baked goods,” Stiles explained when Derek lifted his eyebrows at him in question.

Derek nodded at the fork in Stiles’s hand. “One slice, two forks? That’s some apology.”

Impossibly, Stiles’s grin widened until _Derek’s_ face hurt in sympathy. He waggled his fork, spearing it enthusiastically into the frosting when Derek nudged their knees together and laid the plate across them.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like the Grinch when you do that?”

“Yeth,” Stiles replied through a mouthful of cake. “I was the Grinch for five Halloweens in a row when I was a kid. Scott went as Cindy Lou Who, damn his pure, misguided, Santa-loving heart.”

“Is that what you told him when you were kids?”

“Pretty much,” Stiles said. He left the rest of the cake for Derek, propping his chin in his hand and watching him eat. “Is it weird, sharing your birthday with Christmas?”

Derek shook his head and pointed his fork at the dessert Stiles had put so much effort into baking for him. “Everyone makes a bigger deal out of it _because_ it’s on a holiday. I barely see my sisters on their birthdays anymore, but everyone’s always home for mine. And they make sure to double up my presents.”

“Ugh,” Stiles said suddenly. “Presents.”

When Derek lifted an eyebrow, Stiles responded with some sort of full-body shrug.

“I wasn’t planning to be here into the actual holiday, so I didn’t bring anything. I’m the asshole who didn’t even think to buy your mom a ‘thank you for hosting me’ gift. And it’s not like I’ve been able to go out and get anything last minute.” He swept an expressive arm at the windows, which still framed the quietly persistent snowfall.

Derek made a considering noise and set his empty plate aside. “You make a good point. I guess we should kick you out of the house, then.”

Stiles twisted his face into something annoyed and argumentative. “I’m serious, you dick. You’ll all be exchanging presents tomorrow and I’ll just be sitting there in the corner like a freeloader.”

“We don’t have anything for you either,” Derek pointed out. “Unless you want some of the shitty presents my uncle sent. We’ve got foul-smelling tea, worse cologne, some ugly scarves, a t-shirt with his face screen-printed on it, a couple old books...”

It’d worked; Stiles was laughing again. “Okay, okay, I get the hint,” he said. “I could match your very generous gesture by pulling my dad’s gifts out of my suitcase, but it’s mostly sweaters and vinyls of bands no one but him likes. I think you might all be happier with the box of nothing I’m giving you.”

Derek murmured in agreement, only half-listening. He’d been watching the movement of Stiles’s lips instead; Stiles always seemed to keep them slightly parted, even when he wasn’t speaking, or with his plush lower lip caught between his teeth as he puzzled through something before putting it into words.

“Or,” Stiles said, licking slowly over his lips, leaving them wet and glistening. He shifted closer, his words coming out low and syrupy, as though drenched in honey. “I did just think of another present you could unwrap tonight.”

“Hmmm,” Derek said, still not really listening, until Stiles’s hand was suddenly cupping his cheek, tilting his face up so their eyes met. 

“You can tell me if I’m moving too fast,” Stiles said, his voice still sending shivers along Derek’s spine—in a good way, Derek thought, but it was enough to make him hesitate, until Stiles waggled his eyebrows absurdly, reminding Derek _why_ he’d been so drawn to Stiles all night.

Derek trusted him. Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was another bad decision, in a line of poorly thought-out choices. Right now, all that mattered was Stiles looking at him like he _mattered_. Like he wanted Derek: not his body, not his family’s money, not something he could pry out and take away. Just Derek, with all his flaws and vulnerabilities.

Derek responded by pressing into Stiles’s touch, matching Stiles’s movements as he leaned in, tilting his head to a better angle, then—

“Oh shit, should I brush my teeth first?” Stiles asked suddenly, stopping a breath away from Derek’s lips. “I cooked with a _lot_ of garlic tonight, good thing neither of us are vampires, huh, I really wasn’t thinking abou—_mmmmmph_,” he said, when Derek closed the distance by crashing their mouths together.

“_Mmmph_,” Stiles said again, this time much deeper and more soaked with pleasure.

Derek pressed him back against the carpet, pulling noise after noise out of him, each one more tantalizing than the last.

“Fuck,” Stiles finally said, panting when Derek drew back for long enough to let them both breathe. “Holy shit, okay. Merry Christmas to _me_.”

Derek kissed him again, for another few long, lazy minutes, Stiles digging his fingers into Derek’s hair and responding with aggressive enthusiasm.

“God, I wish I didn’t have to leave,” Stiles said eventually, after they’d moved to the couch, abandoning whatever pretense Derek had of finishing the gifts he’d left scattered across the floor. “You’re making this really hard.”

“I’d hope so,” Derek said, scraping his teeth along the pale curve of Stiles’s throat, then licking soothingly over it when he squirmed.

“Ugh, fuck you,” Stiles complained, arching into it, his scent so warm and heady Derek felt drunk on it. “And that was a cheap shot, so don’t come back with a smart fucking comeback, that’s my move.”

Derek kissed him again, first with a bit of teeth, then gentler, a non-verbal way of showing his gratitude. Despite his words, Stiles was being careful with his hands, not pushing Derek past the kissing and some minor but sweetly satisfying frottage.

They both _wanted_ more—that was more than evident—but Derek wasn’t ready yet. With Stiles, he didn’t feel, possibly for the first time, that he had to force himself past his comfort level. He pressed an apology into the line of Stiles’s jaw, knowing Stiles wouldn’t want him to say it aloud.

Stiles seemed to understand anyway; he threaded his fingers through Derek’s hair, soothingly at first, then with slightly more aggressive tugging. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d be on board with doing this all night, but I think we should take a break.”

“You realize that’s the worst possible phrasing,” Derek said, his lips twitching in amusement as it took Stiles a second to catch on. “And here I thought we were going to last longer than one night.”

“Fuck off,” Stiles said affectionately. “I’m going to romance the hell out of you. That’s _why_ I’m with you on taking it slower for a while. But I need to, uh. Take care of something first so I don’t _blow it_.” He gestured down at his very generously tented pants.

Derek flicked him on the ear for the bad joke—making him squawk, adequate punishment for when he’d done that to Derek on their walk—then kissed him for the thought behind it.

“Seriously,” Stiles said, making very little effort to pry himself free. “I’ve really gotta. Yeah, okay, one more minute. No, you’re right, five more minutes is good. What the hell, let’s see where it goes.”

***

“So about those presents,” Stiles said once they’d gone back to Derek’s abandoned task, this time with Stiles more or less helping him.

“I thought we were done for the night,” Derek said, willing to be swayed again.

“_Actual_ presents,” Stiles said. He tied a sloppy bow and pushed the box towards the tree.

Derek stacked it neatly with the growing pile. For a fairly small family, they always bought a ridiculous number of gifts; it probably would be awkward for Stiles to sit through all of that, but Derek wasn’t sure what else to do. Postpone Christmas? Give Stiles some of the unscented lotion sets they’d just finished wrapping? He thought again about the FaceTime idea. It might be weird and they’d need to figure out timing, but maybe Stiles and his dad could open each other’s gifts—a video exchange, so they could at least see what they’d gotten each other.

Stiles was plunging along another topic, though. “By old books, did you mean those ones in the basement? The really cool, really expensive-looking Latin ones?”

“Peter’s? Yeah,” Derek said. He sighed. They _would_ have been a good gift, under different circumstances, and from any other source. “I meant it, you’re welcome to them.”

Stiles started to turn the offer down, then hesitated, very clearly tempted. “No,” he said after a visible internal struggle. “One of those is a first-edition bestiary. Like, with handwritten annotations _in Latin_, dude. That’s a family heirloom, or it should be.”

“It’s a guilt trip.” When Stiles gestured for him to clarify, Derek sighed again and explained, “It’s Peter’s way of criticizing my career path, or what he sees as a lack of one. He thinks I’m betraying my heritage.”

“_How_?” Stiles responded, with flatteringly baffled outrage.

Talking about his uncle was one of the last things Derek wanted to do on his birthday, when his time with Stiles was already running short, but he supposed relationships meant sharing both the good and bad. If he was serious about trying to make this work for the longterm with Stiles, he’d have to start digging into some of the less agreeable parts of his life. Peter definitely fit that category.

With Peter, where to start was always the biggest question.

“He had some idea about me following in his footsteps. I think it was because I got along with him better when I was a kid; he and Laura butted heads, and Cora always hated him. Even more than she hated most people,” he said, cutting off Stiles’s predictable response. Stiles grinned and nodded for him to continue. “So he’d give me a lot of presents that were supposedly for me, but were really more about guiding me towards what _he_ wanted me to do.”

“Books in Latin,” Stiles guessed. “Well, maybe not when you were a kid. Books about..._learning_ Latin.”

Derek finished another of Cora’s gifts and moved on to one of his mom’s, a silk dress Laura had picked up during her last trip overseas. “I liked learning languages. He threw a lot at me, and some of them stuck. They’re still useful for what I’m doing now—what I hope to do after I graduate. But Latin’s a dead language. I couldn’t stay interested. I told him it was old and stuffy and boring.”

Rather than seeming offended—as someone who’d embraced ancient cultures for his own field of study—Stiles continued nodding along. “He didn’t take it well?”

Derek huffed out something that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You could say that. I was in elementary school; it’s been more than a decade and a half, and some part of his brain’s still convinced that he’s going to shape me into a miniature version of himself.”

Stiles fiddled with a ribbon, curling and uncurling it with restless fingers before tying it in place. “I thought for a long time I was gonna be a cop like my dad. Not because I wanted to or because he put any pressure on me—he’s nothing like your uncle, thank god—but I guess I just saw him coming home day after day in uniform and thought that’s what you were supposed to do. That’s how you made a difference in the world.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Uh, I got a speeding ticket,” Stiles said, scratching at his nose. “The day after I got my license. The deputy who pulled me over, Tara, I’d known her pretty much all my life. And she was standing there, writing me a ticket, and I wasn’t _mad_ about it, I was definitely being a shithead and speeding when I shouldn’t, but I just thought...I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to chase down shitty teenagers or drive out to noise complaints or...do any of the more dangerous stuff, the things I saw in my dad’s files. If I had a family some day, I didn’t want them sitting home at night wondering if I’d come home.”

“And how’d you figure out what you did want?”

“Three days after _that_, I found out about werewolves.” Stiles gave up on the ribbon and crookedly taped a premade bow on top of the box instead, printing Laura’s name in thick block letters. “First, I thought my best friend was dying, and then I found out he had superpowers. I’ve always been good at research, so everything kinda fell into place after that. Classics isn’t really—well, it’s not 100% where I want to be, but it’s the closest I could get with a human undergrad. My dad still doesn’t get it, exactly, but I think he’s just relieved I found something with course titles like _Magic and Witchcraft in the Greco-Roman World_ that’ll still probably land me with an actual job at the end of it.”

“My dad was a carpenter,” Derek said. He breathed through that memory before setting the next gift under the tree. “He made a lot of the furniture in this house. Peter...hated him. Hated that my mom had married a human. Hales don’t taint the bloodline like that.”

Stiles’s jaw tightened so visibly Derek could almost hear his teeth grinding. Stiles and Peter in the same room...if it ever happened, Derek suspected the fallout would be epic.

“So he was trying to save the next generation by steering you back to your roots.”

Peter had never said it exactly in those terms, but Derek had been smart enough to connect the dots. Eventually.

“I’m a history major, which is close to what he wanted, but I went down the wrong path. He would’ve loved if I’d gone the Classics route like you. Instead, I’m studying what he’d sneeringly call _human history_, like that isn’t a part of us, too. Worse, my track’s international and global, with a contemporary focus—meaning I’m trying to learn from the past, to apply it to the future, instead of getting stuck in it like he is.” Derek ripped the paper he was pulling over an oversized throw pillow.

“It’s funny,” Stiles said, wincing a bit as he adjusted his position—his slowly-healing feet still sensitive, although not enough for him to accept more of Derek’s help. “We’d drive your uncle crazy, wouldn’t we. A human and a werewolf, doing the exact opposite of what he’d think we should.”

“Good,” Derek said simply.

Stiles’s chuckle was dark and throaty. “I like this side of you, Derek Hale. Then again, I like all sides of you.”

Derek’s instinct was to brush the compliment aside with a deflection, with a cautious, _So far_, but he let the impulse pass. He watched the reflection of the Christmas lights in Stiles’s eyes, the way he always seemed to be moving—brimming with life and enthusiasm—even when he was sitting completely still.

Derek wanted to see more of that. For a long, long time, if he had his way.

“If Classics isn’t exactly what you want, what is?”

Stiles’s eyes turned back to him, as intent and interested as ever. “Grad school. I just finished all my applications, so they’re out in the world now, but...I dunno, my advisor says she thinks my chances are good. By next Fall, hopefully I’ll be able to map out more of a personalized track.”

The last of the presents were done; the night was wearing on, threading its way towards daylight. Derek dug his fingers into the velvet tree skirt, under the pretense of straightening it. “So by next this time year, you’ll be...”

“I applied to some places in California—by my dad and Scott. A couple overseas.” Stiles reached over to touch Derek’s arm, then his shoulder, trailing his fingers lightly over his back until the tension eased out of his muscles again. “Several on the East Coast, but my top choice is NYU.”

Hope flickered, steadying into a brighter flame when Stiles met his gaze.

“You probably know this,” Stiles said, his grin going crooked, “and I’m guessing it’s part of why you went with Columbia instead, but there are a shitload of shifters in NYU’s faculty.”

Derek ducked his head, not needing to actually confirm it. NYU would’ve been the easier path for him, which was why he hadn’t taken it. Peter had written him three letters of recommendation and had been furious when he hadn’t used a single one.

“It makes a lot of things perfect for me,” Stiles continued. “Including what I checked is...” He pulled out his phone, swiping open a still-active map.

“Six miles,” Derek said, glancing down at the screen, at the thick blue line linking them.

“Thirty minutes on transit. Hell, I could walk it in...well, okay, two hours, I’m never doing that, but the point is I _could_, if we got desperate.”

“As long as you don’t try it in snowshoes,” Derek said, and Stiles tackled him, doing his best to find any of Derek’s ticklish points, in what he apparently—and falsely—thought was some kind of punishment.

***

“What if it doesn’t work out,” Derek said later, after they’d straightened the tree and rewrapped a couple of badly crumpled gifts. He’d been trying to keep the darker thoughts at bay, but he couldn’t stop them from circling.

“Then it’s not meant to be,” Stiles said. He set the last plate in the dishwasher and closed it, leaning back against it to look at Derek.

Derek reached around him to set the timer, listening to its familiar churn, the sounds of a house finally settling in for the night. There was the quiet thrum of a heartbeat beneath that—a sound that was far newer, but fast becoming something he couldn’t live without. “You don’t believe that,” he said.

“No.” Stiles set his hands on Derek’s hips, drawing him in willingly. “Fuck fate. Fuck all that shit. I’d fight like hell every step of the way, as long as you’re in it with me.”

“No _it’s a Christmas miracle_?” Derek asked, brushing the tip of his nose against Stiles’s, then letting their lips meet for the barest, teasing second. “You showing up here. Getting trapped so all this could happen.”

“The snowstorm?” Stiles asked. “I think that’s just called winter, Derek.”

For someone planning on getting a PhD in the supernatural, he was awfully flippant about the possibility of there being any sort of magical fate underpinning their world. Derek didn’t tell him that—didn’t tell him about the wish he’d made when he’d blown out his birthday candle, that already seemed well on its way to coming true.

For Stiles, it didn’t make a difference what the universe had planned for them, or if they’d run into far more mundane obstacles. As long as they were together, they could overcome anything. That was the part that mattered to Stiles—the kinds of promises he’d be ready to make.

And that was enough. For now. For their future.

Derek believed him.

**Author's Note:**

> Magic and Witchcraft in the Greco-Roman World is an actual course title, which somehow managed to strip all of the formatting out of my fic when I pasted it from a university website into my doc. Which somehow makes it seem even more appropriate to include. (And definitely a class Stiles would be interested in taking.)
> 
> Apologies to anyone who thought I'd given up on writing Sterek! I still have about a dozen WIPs but not enough time to work on them all. I'm hoping to do better in the new year. Comments, kudos, anything to let me know you're still around and reading are greatly appreciated. Sterek is eternal, and I'm glad we're all still sharing stories about them falling in love.


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